Monday, April 28, 2014, 7:30 p.m.

The Museum of Modern Art

With Sergio Castellitto, Donatella Finocchiaro, Sami Frey. Framed by two gorgeously choreographed weddings—only one of which might be real—the stage is set for the spectacle of a film director in rapid decline. Sergio Castellitto is perfect as the depressive director saddled with cheating colleagues and demanding fans. When he falls for a princess in a castle guarded by two dogs and a menacing father, he’ll do anything to stop her wedding. Farcical and cynical in equal measure, the film is also a heartfelt critique of the state of the Italian movie industry and, by extension, the whole society in which “the Dead commands,” and everyone else cheats, deceives, usurps, and creates bad art, accompanied by hideous pop music. The heart of the real artist comes through in the movie itself, though, with its innocent fairy tale symbolism and magnificent use of all kinds of imagery fueled by the imagination, from church and pagan ceremonies, to surveillance and photographic images, to dreams and movies.